Within the next few weeks Edgehill College will begin a new academic year - but under strange circumstances. A large part of the college building is being demolished and will be replaced by premises more suited to the needs of a modern theological college.
Building operations are expected to last about a year, during which time the college will use some of the rooms of the nearby Fisherwick Presbyterian Church halls, which have kindly been made available.
The lay training department of the college, the Edgehill Christian Education Centre, will work in and from the same halls. The centre offers daytime and evening courses for lay people wishing to increase their knowledge of the Bible and other aspects of church life or to develop their skills in Christian service and witness, both within the Church organisation and outside it. Some of these courses are conducted by correspondence and have attracted students from other countries, one of them this year from as far away as Australia.
A new 10-week evening course has been introduced this year. Called Leading Music in Worship, it has been initiated in co-operation with the Church's Worship Development Project. It is designed to help those responsible for songs, anthems, and other music, which form so vital an element in worship.
For administrative purposes and to promote local co-operation, the Irish Methodist Church is divided into eight Districts. During last week and the coming week the Autumn Synods of these Districts have been and are meeting. These provide a forum where members of all the churches in the District may discuss in depth issues of current importance in the Church and in the community.
ECONI has announced the Annual Catherwood Lecture, which will take place in the chapel of Union Theological College, Belfast, on Thursday, October 18th. It will be given by Mr Mark Greene of the London Institute of Contemporary Christianity. He will speak of "The Great Divide". This is the division between the sacred and the secular in contemporary life.
This evening the President of the Methodist Church, the Rev Harold Good, will be in Bunclody, where the local community is commemorating the visits of John Wesley and the Methodist contribution to its life in the years since. Tomorrow he will visit the Dublin South Circuit, which has congregations at Dundrum, Rathgar, Drimnagh and Tallaght.
On Thursday morning the President will attend the meeting of the Irish Council of Churches at Newry, where the Rev John Rutter and the Rev Dudley Levistone Cooney will make a presentation on the proposed covenant designed to develop relations between the Church of Ireland and the Methodist Church.
On Sunday, September 23rd, Mr Good will visit the Methodist Church in Adare and Ballingrane, Co Limerick, the latter probably the oldest site in Ireland in continuous use for worship by the Methodist people. In the evening he will visit the congregations at Limerick and Shannon. On Saturday, September 29th, he will visit Newtownards to dedicate the recently built church halls.
Sunday morning worship on September 23rd will be broadcast by RTE Radio 1 (medium wave) from the Methodist Church in Dun Laoghaire. It will be led by the minister, the Rev Derek Poole.